White House press secretary Jay Carney is asked why President Obama hasn't released his college transcripts. Carney dodges the question and tells the reporter, Ed Henry of FOX News, to ask the campaign. Carney then talks about candidates and releasing their tax returns. Ed Henry, FOX News: "I don't know how many years, maybe you do, George Romney released of his college transcripts, but Republicans like to complain that the President has not released his college transcripts. What is the stated reason for that?" Jay Carney, White House: "I would refer you to the campaign. "I think we've answered this...

When White House press secretary Jay Carney uses the phrase "the previous administration" it is usually an opportunity for him to point out that President Obama "inherited" problems and a poor economy from former President Bush. However, at today's press briefing, Carney was more than happy to cite the Bush administration when it came to explaining President Obama's recent recess appointment of Richard Cordray to head the watchdog Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

White House press secretary Jay Carney says Senate Republicans "gaveling in and gaveling out for seven seconds does not constitute a recess." Therefore, Carney argues, President Obama operated in a legal manner when he appointed Richard Cordray to head the consumer protection board. "Our assessment is that Congress has been in recess, and had made every indication that it will be in recess for a sustained period of time. And that gaveling in and gaveling out for seven seconds does not constitute a recess with regard to the President's constitutional authority," Carney said at Thursday's briefing. "Let's take the other,...

Dem Keystone support creates tougher fight for Reid, ObamaBy Alexander Bolton - 12/16/11 04:08 PM ET Republicans want to jam Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) on the Keystone oil sands pipeline and the Democratic leader will have a tough time resisting, given support within his caucus for the project. GOP leaders have made clear to Reid that they will not approve an extension of the payroll tax holiday unless it includes language to speed up construction of the pipeline. Senate Republicans estimate as many as 14 Senate Democrats support the project. Labor unions have also voiced strong backing, complicating...

Barack Obama's political tone has become progressively more partisan since his "no red states, no blue states just the United States" warm 'n fuzziness at the 2004 Dem convention. But President Obama's rhetoric is still not harsh enough to suit Mike Barnicle. On Morning Joe today, the former Boston Globe columnist demanded to know of Obama press sec Jay Carney just when the president was going to stop "swinging at air" and start calling out Republicans by name. View the video here.

As I heard Barack Obama and his propaganda minister, Jay Carney, endorsing tax cuts as a vehicle for economic growth, I was reminded, again, of George Orwell's "1984" and the striking similarities between his Oceania and the American left's vision for America. Oceania's Big Brother regime had "four Ministries between which the entire apparatus of government was divided," the Ministry of Truth, the Ministry of Peace, the Ministry of Love and the Ministry of Plenty. Each department was dedicated to the opposite principle suggested by its title. "Truth" disseminated lies. "Peace" promoted war. "Love" enforced uniformity of thought. And "Plenty"...

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — White House officials are praising the defeat of an anti-abortion proposal in Mississippi that would have defined life as beginning at conception. President Barack Obama's spokesman said in a statement Wednesday that the vote was a victory for women and families.

Toward the end of Hamlet, the Queen remarks, "One woe doth tread upon another's heel, so fast they follow." I was reminded of her doleful remark Wednesday as the president promoted his latest inane budget-busting panacea. In the president's remarks and his press secretary's attempted clarification, the rapid succession of woeful comments were treading all over themselves. While tweaking Congress its vote last night to re-affirm America's motto, "In God We Trust," Obama responded, "I trust in God, but God wants to see us help ourselves by putting people back to work." This afternoon [White House press secretary] Jay Carney...

White House press secretary Jay Carney was asked by ABC's Jake Tapper to give a response to Teamsters President James Hoffa's controversial comment at yesterday's union rally in Detroit, Michigan in which President Obama also attended. Tapper asked for the White House's reaction in light of President Obama calling for civility in political rhetoric after the attempted assassination of Congresswoman Gabby Giffords. "First of all, those weren't comments by the president," Carney told Tapper. "The President wasn't there. I mean, he wasn't on stage. He didn't speak for another twenty minutes. He didn't hear it." "Mr. Hoffa speaks for himself....

White House press secretary Jay Carney chastised Texas Gov. Rick Perry for suggesting on the campaign trail that some economic policy decisions the Federal Reserve is considering border on “treasonous.” Speaking at a campaign stop in Iowa on Monday, the Texas governor didn’t name Federal Reserve Board Chairman Ben Bernanke, but he said that printing more money--or quantitative easing--amounted to playing politics and he considered such a move as “almost treacherous—or treasonous in my opinion.” Quantitative easing is an effort to lower borrowing costs and keep banks lending.

Jay Carney, meet Jay Carney.In 2001, the then-Time magazine reporter wrote a snarky piece criticizing President George W. Bush's month-long vacation that was billed as a "Home to the Heartland" tour. But almost exactly 10 years later Carney, now the Obama White House's press secretary, is defending President Barack Obama's Midwest job-creation tour and vacation at Martha's Vineyard."I don't think Americans out there would begrudge that notion that the President would spend some time with his family," claimed Carney at a recent press briefing.But that's exactly what he, as a private citizen working for Time,

"I understand why extending unemployment insurance provides relief to people who need it, but how does that create jobs," Wall Street Journal's Laura Meckler asked Jay Carney at Wednesday's WH briefing. Carney responded: "Oh, uh, it is by, uh, I would expect a reporter from the Wall Street Journal would know this as part of the entrance exam." "There are few other ways that can directly put money into the economy than applying unemployment insurance," Carney said. Carney answers the question: "It is one of the most direct ways to infuse money directly into the economy because people who are...

“The White House doesn’t create jobs,” President Obama’s spokesman, Jay Carney, said last week. He’s more right than he knows. The policies the administration and Congress put into place have a profound effect on job creation - a profoundly negative one. Gimmicks like tax credits for hiring veterans and another short-term extension of the payroll tax cut aren’t going to jump-start the sagging economy or do anything to get the unemployment rate below even 9 percent, let alone anything approaching the 5 or 6 percent levels that would be considered full employment.

Earlier on Monday, the President told the press he would produce his deficit plan to the not-yet-in-existence bipartisan, bicameral "super committee." Here's what he said: I realize that after what we just went through, there’s some skepticism that Republicans and Democrats on the so-called super committee, this joint committee that’s been set up, will be able to reach a compromise, but my hope is that Friday’s news will give us a renewed sense of urgency. I intend to present my own recommendations over the coming weeks on how we should proceed. And that committee will have this administration’s full cooperation....

Alternate headline: â€śJay Carney helpfully provides GOP with new campaign slogan.â€ť Carney listed legislative priorities the president believes will create jobs, including an infrastructure bank, the passage of free trade agreements, and tax cuts. But he would not say what was being done to further those goals while Congress takes a month-long vacation.â€śThe White House doesnâ€™t create jobs,â€ť Carney said, adding â€śthe government, together Â— White House, Congress Â— creates policies that allow for greater job creation.â€ť Asked whether the White House could do more, Carney said â€śthere is no silver bulletâ€ť to creating jobs Â— but he didnâ€™t answer...

During a White House press briefing, CBS's Norah O' Donnell asked Jay Carney "where are the tax revenues?" and bemoaned, "You gave them everything they wanted, and we got nothing!" in response to the debt ceiling deal.

White House press secretary Jay Carney said Thursday that President Obama’s debt ceiling plan is the best-known option at this point. There’s just one problem with that: No publicly available, detailed Obama plan exists. “There is no plan that has been offered, certainly in the last several months, about which more detail is known or has been specified than the Obama-Boehner plan, okay, in terms of the cuts in domestic spending, both defense and non-defense discretionary; the savings coming out of entitlements programs, including Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security; the kind of tax reform that was envisioned and the mechanisms...

After a long back-and-forth between Ed Henry, FOX News' White House correspondent and press secretary Jay Carney about President Obama's lack of a public plan, Carney told Henry to tell his viewers everything will be okay: Ed Henry, FOX News: "But over the weekend, Democrats were saying there's going to be a drop if there is no action. Asian markets are going to crash on Sunday. It didn't happen. American markets didn't crash on Monday, hopefully they haven't crashed -- why should people believe ..."Jay Carney, WH press secretary: "You should go on the air and tell your viewers there...

White House Press Secretary Jay Carney: "Well, two things remain uncontestably true. The economy is vastly improved from what it was when Barack Obama was sworn into office as president. We were in economic free-fall. There were predictions that we were headed to the second Great Depression. We were losing up to, over 700,000 jobs a month, we were contracting at greater than 6 percent -- our economy was. So, the economy has improved. It has not improved enough. "Well, there's no question that we face headwinds, and the president has been very direct about that. And we need to...

Jay Carney admits calling MSNBC yesterday to complain about Mark Halperin's crack [that we were first to report] that the President, at his Wednesday press conference, acted like a "d--k." Did the White House press secretary take the opportunity of his call to pressure the show to bring on more pro-Obama flacks? The question arises because on today's show, Mika Brzezinski revealed that "we're getting hit a lot lately for not bringing on people who speak on behalf of the White House and really stick up for the President." View video here.

...With Harold Koh (legal advisor for the Department of State) and Jay Carney in tow - engaged in a game of semantics. Harold Koh recently said: "We are not saying the president can take the country into war on his own. We are not saying the War Powers Resolution is unconstitutional or should be scrapped or that we can refuse to consult Congress. We are saying the limited nature of this particular mission is not the kind of hostilities envisioned by the War Powers Resolution." Problem is, is that the WPA does not make any distinction between one kind of...

On March 21, 2011, Obama cited the WPR which requires him to notify Congresa 48 hours before beginning military operations. That same day Obama said that the military strikes against Libya would be "limited in their nature, duration and scope." During the past almost 90 days, Obama has given updates on these "limited" strikes. Now that 90 days draws near, Carney says that since the strikes have been "limited" that basically the 90 day rule doesn't apply. He apparently wants to use a WPA provision which allows for the president to deploy U.S. forces and engage in military strikes for...

There is increasing concern in Washington that Jay Carney, the new White House Press Secretary, isn’t up to the job. Even when faced with an innocuous question that requires only that he trot out the official line, he looks completely stunned, as if the questioner is Bob Woodward asking him about Deep Throat. He gathers himself, embarks on a stuttering reply, pauses for what seems like an eternity, then starts gabbling, tripping over his words, rephrasing what he’s just said, then looking plaintively back at the questioner as if to say, “How did I do? Was that okay? Or would...

Jay Carney says President Obama was never against signing statements, just when President Bush "abused" them. Watch what then-Senator Obama said in 2008 while running for president and decide for yourself. "His concern was with what he saw as an abuse of the signing statement by the previous administration. So that the positions he took in signing statements on the budget bill entirely consistent with that position, you need to retain the right to, as president, to be able to issue those signing statements, but obviously they should not be abused," White House press secretary Jay Carney told the press...

JAKE TAPPER, ABC NEWS: "What is going on over there right now? We have not heard the latest information from the NRC or the Japanese government and apparently there has been something that has happened in the last few hours." CARNEY, WH Press Secretary: "Well, it is clearly a crisis. There is clearly --" TAPPER: "-- what is specifically going on?" CARNEY: "Again, I am standing here at the White House, I think you have reporters in Japan, you have reporters including ones here that could get the technical detailed information on what we know from the NRC, from the...

White House Press Secretary Jay Carney barely survived the briefing today. CBS' Chip Reid was clearly fed up watching the administration do nothing about Libyan atrocities while claiming they were responding with "unprecedented" speed. Today the clock ran out on the White House and their dithering was exposed. Q On no-fly zone, what exactly is the U.S. -- the administration's position before the Security Council? MR. CARNEY: Our position, Chip, remains that we are evaluating a number of options, military options, including -- Q But a decision has to be made now. MR. CARNEY: -- including a no-fly zone. We...

White House press secretary Jay Carney says the Recovery Act added several million jobs and lowered the unemployment rate. According to Carney, the "goals" of the stimulus package "have been met." A reporter asked Carney why unemployment is at 9% and not 7%, the percentage projected if the stimulus worked. Carney dismissed the question: "We've said repeatedly that we don't want to relitigate the battles of the past," Carney told the reporter.

President Obama has chosen former journalist Jay Carney to replace press secretary Robert Gibbs, a longtime loyalist, when he leaves the post in mid-February, according to a senior administration official. The White House will also name two new deputy chiefs of staff: Nancy-Ann DeParle, director of the Office of Health Reform, and Alyssa Mastromonaco, White House director of scheduling and advance. Carney, now the communications director for Vice President Biden, came to the White House in 2009 after a long career in journalism that included serving as Washington bureau chief of Time magazine. The White House had made clear it...

Who cares if we're like Bill Murray in Groundhog Day, careening in his pickup toward the brink of the rock quarry? At least we're moving fast! That seemed to be Claire Shipman's logic in urging speed in the implementation of the stimulus plan. The ABC correspondent made her curious comment today during the roundtable segment of This Week. CLAIRE SHIPMAN: I think that, I mean as George [Will] said, given that nobody knows the outcome, it seems as though the most important thing is speed here. Will made the logical response. View video.

At least he made it official.Time magazine Washington bureau chief Jay Carney is quitting his magazine post to take the fearsome task of managing the commications problems of incoming vice president Joe Biden.This hardly comes as a surprise. During his tenure at Time, Carney accrued a reputation for bashing Republicans. In March, he urged President Bush to give a speech on the economy and say that he is "a Republican who actually cares about people that are suffering." In a November 2007 blog post, Carney slammed the Bush administration for "los[ing] touch with reality" for insisting that the situation in...

Jay Carney is leaving Time magazine after 20 years to be President-elect Biden's communications director in the White House, astonished magazine and gleeful transition sources said. Carney's title will be assistant to the vice president and director of communications. TIME.com's "The Page" first reported his new job. Carney, the magazine's Washington bureau chief, is one of Washington's best-known talking heads, with regular appearances on ABC's "This Week," "The McLaughlin Group" and MSNBC's "Hardball." Biden has assembled a team of heavyweights: Ron Klain, who was chief of staff to former Vice President Al Gore, as chief of staff; Mike Donilon, one...